March 31, 2004
You can’t make this stuff up
Michael Jackson feted by black US lawmakers for his contribution to kids
Though Dawn can certainly be my pet
There are few things I hate more than affirmative action. The development of this hate, I think, happened because I grew up in very racially mixed neighborhood and have friends of all different races and religions. I don’t like seeing them treated like white people’s pets. ‘Awww, you cute, stupid black person, I’ll help you succeed, you obviously can’t do it on your own, I’ll lower the standards so you can compete with the much smarter white people.’ It’s enraging. Yaron’s post this morning has my blood boiling.
Stirring
Spot On reader Bobby sends along an article from BBC News about a foiled bomb attack in London and British politicians commenting that they need to build bridges with the British Muslim community. Something struck me as kind of odd, though, about the article. If you scroll down, you see a headline in bold ‘Muslim backlash’. The paragraph then goes on to quote Muslim Council Spokesman Inayat Bunglawala speaking of said backlash. The next paragraph is titled ‘Islamophobia’ although the topic of the paragraph is raids carried out by officers with no quotes on ‘Islamaphobia’ by anyone. Is the BBC editorializing or projecting?
March 30, 2004
There’s a reason these people don’t come to Brooklyn
I know it’s been said before: the anti-globalization protestors are a bunch of thugs and represent the very worst of our society. Crosblog has a post (scroll down a bit) about how these protest=party losers are threatening a Georgia town with violence and destruction on the eve of the G-8 summit there. How are the gun laws in Georgia? I would hate to see protestors be misinformed about the risks they run when smashing people’s windows.
Go Jews Go
I’m glad to see my people are wising up.
Via The Corner.
Come back, Jerry!
I realize it’s just an ad, but this makes me really miss Seinfeld (and no, ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is not a good substitute.)
Via Popshot.
John Stossel Rocks
I’m going to hear John Stossel speak on Thursday (more info here), for the second time in a few months-he’s that good, and the reminder for the meeting attached a link to an excerpt of his book reprinted in Reason magazine. The excerpt is titled ‘Confessions of a Welfare Queen’ and it’s a great read.
Excellent new Bush ad
Who knew the price of gas would become such a big issue? I mean, you’d think that with the pipeline we’re laying down in Afghanistan and with our whole purpose of going into Iraq being oiiiiiil, we’d be swimming in the black gold . That’s why the new Bush ad is fantastic. It ties Kerry to that beating you’re taking at the pump. And while that won’t matter so much in places where hardly anyone drives like NYC, I can see it having an effect on places like California. Polls say that the main reason Gray Davis lost the recall, apart from having the misfortune of running against za terminator, was that the election took place about two weeks after everyone received their new car tax bill that had tripled under Davis. Californians like their cars and both parties like the state’s 55 electoral votes. Imagine the Republicans taking that state out of the (D) column. I don’t know if the Bush team are targeting California with this new ad but they certainly should be.
It’s such an honor to just be nominated
Spot On has the esteemed honor to be on the Politburo Diktat’s latest Blogland map.
March 29, 2004
President Kerry?
Maybe I Think Too Much has an excellent contest that allows you to guess which states will be won by each candidate. At the moment, I have Kerry winning with 280 electoral votes spread across 24 states and George W. Bush receiving 258 electoral votes spread across 27 states. I think it’s way too early to tell what will happen, and I’m convinced that the more people will know about Kerry the less they will like him, but that’s what the numbers look like to me right now. I gave Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, three states that went for Bush in 2000, to Kerry. I also let him keep New Mexico, a state that Bush lost by about 300 votes. Everything else from 2000 stayed the same. We’ll see what happens, there is still a lot of time for these predictions to be altered. What do your predictions say?
Some things never change
Robert Fisk is a dumbass. That’s all I have to say about that.
Two excellent cartoons from cartoonists that should be in every newspaper
Visit their site and buy their book. These guys deserve fame and fortune.
March 28, 2004
‘things have only gotten worse, much worse’
Nidra Poller is a Jew, who once lived in America, living in France. She’s finding it hard to stay there. Her piece in Commentary is a must-read. An excerpt:
I’m being treated to a poignant lesson in European and Jewish history. The 30’s: why did they stay? Why didn’t they run for their lives? Couldn’t they see what was happening? I see before me a vivid demonstration of the deep roots we dig to make our lives bloom, the intricate biology of a human life, irrigated with the lifeblood of a community, inextricably connected to a society, born of life to give life to keep life alive. Leaving is not packing up and tipping your hat goodbye. It is tearing live flesh out of a living matrix.
I am, or was, the first American-born generation in a family that fled Europe before World War I: a lesson in the wisdom of leaving before it is too late. Now I am the first stage in the story of a three-generation “French” family. Why don’t people just pick up and go while they still can? It’s always the same. There is an ailing grandmother, a son in medical school, a daughter who just got married, a business too good to throw away and not good enough to sell. There are in-laws and obligations and unfinished business and . . . hope. Hope that it will all blow over. That people will come to their senses, reason win out, normal life resume. And so, blinded by hope, people minimize danger and cling to an imagined stability.
Jews are being persecuted every day in France. Some are insulted, pelted with stones, spat upon; some are beaten or threatened with knives or guns. Synagogues are torched, schools burned to the ground. A little over a month ago, at least one Jew was savagely murdered, his throat slit, his face gouged with a carving knife. Did it create an uproar? No. The incident was stifled, and by common consent—not just by the authorities, but by the Jews.
Some Jews are simply frightened; they are reluctant to take the subway, walk in certain neighborhoods, go out after dark. Others, clearly identifiable as Jews, are courageous and defiant. Many, perhaps the majority, show no outward signs of Jewishness and do not seek to know the truth about the rampant and increasingly violent anti-Semitism all around them. If you are Jewish but do not defend Israel or act too religious or look too different, you are not yet a target—so why insist on monitoring the danger when daily life is so delicious?
Via Anti-Com.
EuroPress
Denis Boyles has a fantastic roundup of European press on the Clarke situation, the boy bomber with Downs Syndrome that Israel diffused, the strong results in local elections in France by the Socialists and Le Pen’s National Front, the ongoing trouble in multilaterally liberated Kosovo, the problems with the EU constitution, and a really telling story about a BBC reporter furthering a myth that British soldiers would go door to door killing people when the invasion of Iraq began. Boyles’ weekly column has become a must-read for me and should be for you too.
Goodbye to all that
I think I linked to this piece when it was originally published in 2002 (sidenote: Spot On is nearing its second birthday), but Ron Rosenbaum’s goodbye to leftism in general, and takedown of Marxism specifically, deserves another read.
Via Roger L. Simon.
Appeasement=Death
Michael Totten has some thoughts on Israel’s ‘cycle of violence’ and how moves like killing Yassin seek to break it.
